In Central Mass., gun dealers can't keep up with demand

It is perhaps a testament to the pall of shock and sorrow that fell upon the nation after the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary that the tragedy has prompted an urgent run on military-style guns.

Firearms enthusiasts apparently believe the murders of 20 children and six adults at the school has galvanized a country long divided about gun control measures to enact sweeping new restrictions next year.

Local gun shop owners report they quickly sold out of whatever stock they had on hand and have not been able to order more because manufacturers have no remaining inventory to ship. Some customers have found the national computer system for required background checks so clogged with transactions lately that local retailers sometimes have been unable to sell even shotguns or traditional hunting rifles.

“I'm sure some stuff is going to get restricted, and people may be saying, 'I'm going to go on and get it now before they do that,' ” figured Michael LaRocca, owner of LaRocca Gunworks in downtown Worcester. “I tried to buy a few things just to have on the shelves here, but you can't get it. The inventory's all sold out.”

Ware Gun Shop owner Michael Weisser sold the nine military-style rifles he had in his store in three days. Since then, he's had people stop by almost every day looking for one of the various semi-automatic civilian versions of the U.S. military's M-16 and M-4 assault rifles.

He considers the panic buying an overreaction, one largely fueled by speculation in conservative media and dire warnings from the National Rifle Association, the country's largest gun rights lobbying group.

“There's all this talk about banning guns that gets around. People come in and say to me, 'I better get a gun. Obama is going to take away all the guns.' They don't really know what they're talking about, but it's what they're hearing and repeating,” Mr. Weisser said.

President Barack Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden with leading an effort to formulate policies to address gun violence in the United States. The president also has pledged to use his authority and influence to push for measures to reduce gun violence.

State data on sales of new firearms in Massachusetts since the Newtown, Conn., shootings earlier this month weren't available by press time. But the anecdotal reports of a major spike in gun sales here and across the country apparently are being driven by current gun owners, as area police chiefs report no appreciable increase in applications for new gun permits.

“I have not seen an increase since the Sandy Hook incident,” Hubbardston Police Chief Dennis G. Perron said. “Hubbardston is always very active with licensing, and this past year has been busy, but that's due to the cycle of renewals, not necessarily an influx of new applicants.”

The situation is the same in nearby West Brookfield, said Police Chief C. Thomas O'Donnell.

Gun rights activist James Wallace said he went to a local shop last week to buy a new shotgun and found the shelves all but picked clean of rifles. The store had the shotgun he wanted, but it couldn't complete the required background check for him to buy it right then.

“The national system was so backlogged with sales, the guy said, 'Just come back tomorrow. We'll try to do it tonight.' That tells you how busy gun sales are right now,” said Mr. Wallace, executive director of the Northboro-based Gun Owners Action League.

Mr. Wallace said his years as a Beacon Hill lobbyist have taught him not to venture predictions about what legislative bodies will do, but the feeling among gun owners that big changes in the law may be coming is palpable, he said.

“They're all very concerned that there'll be a knee-jerk reaction,” he said.

Mr. LaRocca, a former police officer and correction officer, gets a similar read from his customers in Worcester: “They're just worried about what's going to happen.”

One possibility is that Congress could revive a lapsed assault weapons ban. Massachusetts already has such a law on the books, but neither the state law nor the former federal one outlaw military-style weapons that look like and fire the same bullets as their military inspirations, but without an automatic fire setting and with various cosmetic differences that make no difference in lethality.

The civilian versions are semi-automatic, which means one bullet is fired each time the shooter pulls the trigger. An automatic rifle, or machine gun, continues to fire bullets at a rapid rate as long as the trigger is held down or until it runs out of ammunition.

Advocates of stricter gun control dub the legal military-style weapons “assault rifles,” while gun rights supporters call them “modern sporting rifles.” The killer at Sandy Hook Elementary carried such a weapon, made by Bushmaster Firearms International of North Carolina, that was legally owned by his mother, whom he also killed, police said.

The shootings of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and a number of others in Arizona early last year and the mass killing of 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 didn't drive up gun sales like now, Mr. Weisser said, because they fueled the debate over guns, but didn't upend it as the Sandy Hook shootings may. The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado did produce a temporary spike in sales among gun enthusiasts who feared new restrictions, he said.

But not like this.

“This one is by far the largest spike. No question,” Mr. Weisser said. “There probably isn't a dealer in the United States that has an assault-style rifle in stock to sell.”

“It's been like this for two weeks,” he added. “How long it's going to last, I have no idea.”